I've no idea whether this word means "lead" or "begin"~~~~and would u please tell me the accidence of it~~~~~

Thanx a lot

Did you mean
[face=SPIonic]h)=xqai[/face] ?
it is impossible for a word to start with a rough breathing and a vovel immediately followed by an aspirated consonant. (A rule of no known exceptions, hence very useful.)

if it be so, it seems to be derived from [face=SPIonic]a)/gw[/face]as a perfect middle/passive infinitive

Which of the possible meanings of [face=SPIonic]a)/gw[/face] can however be perhaps only told from the surrounding context.

You can find out my quoted passage here.And I want to kown not only what does it mean,but also the transform of it and what kind of the termination .............would u please help me analyze it??
Thanx a lot.......

medea wrote:And I want to kown not only what does it mean,but also the transform of it and what kind of the termination .............would u please help me analyze it??

Hello medea,

That link that Paul posted points to a page which contains what you are looking for:

[face=SPIonic]h)=xqai[/face] - perf inf mid/pass

That's what you were looking for, isn't it: Pefect Infinitive, Middle/Passive. The fifth principle part of [face=SPIonic]a)/gw[/face] is [face=SPIonic]h)=gmai[/face].

Note that in the perfect tense, the [face=SPIonic]a[/face] becomes [face=SPIonic]h[/face] because of reduplication, not because of augment. Augment is only used in historic indicative tenses (impefect, aorist) but reduplication is present in all moods of the perfect tense, including the infinitive. What's confusing is that, if the verb stem starts with a vowel, reduplication looks identical to augment. So it looks like the infinitive is augmented, but infinitive is not augmented, it's reduplicated. Also, [face=SPIonic]g[/face] becomes [face=SPIonic]x[/face] because of the aspirated consonant [face=SPIonic]q[/face].

This rule works well for [face=SPIonic]e)/xw[/face] (< *[face=SPIonic](EX-W[/face] < *[face=SPIonic]SEX-W[/face]) fut. [face=SPIonic]e(/cw[/face]

As for [face=SPIonic]e(fqo/j[/face]:
the word [face=SPIonic]a)pefqo/j[/face]suggests that there is spiritus lenis. On the other hand LSJ explicitly mentions: ``by dissimilation for [face=SPIonic]a)/fefqos[/face].''

The byzantinian codices should be consulted (as the oldest authority). And even then the result might be inconclusive. A positive evidence would be written spirutus asper. An even stronger evidence would be change of [face=SPIonic]t[/face] > [face=SPIonic]q[/face], [face=SPIonic]p[/face] > [face=SPIonic]f[/face], and [face=SPIonic]k[/face] > [face=SPIonic]x[/face] in preceding preposition or [face=SPIonic]ou)k[/face]A negative evidence would be the negation of those two.

As for [face=SPIonic]h(=xi[/face]:
it is an epic form. I am not sure whether the rule applies to epic as well.

Names could be a special case.

And of course I might err. Or LSJ might err. (look for [face=SPIonic]i)xqu/j[/face] and [face=SPIonic]ixqu=j[/face] in LSJ (big) and LS (middle), only one form is deemed correct)